"V-22s May Go To Iraq"

Dallas Morning News
January 18, 2007

V-22s May Go To Iraq

In sign of plans, Marines familiarize soldiers with tilt-rotor

By Richard Whittle, Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON * The Marine Corps recently sent two V-22 Ospreys to Fort
Stewart, Ga., to give familiarization rides to Army soldiers going to
Iraq.

It was the strongest sign yet that the much maligned, Texas-built
tilt-rotor troop transport is headed to Iraq for its first combat duty.

"Although the Marines aren't publicizing the fact, they plan to deploy
V-22s in Iraq this year," said Loren Thompson of the Lexington
Institute, a think tank with close ties to the defense industry and top
military leaders.

Built by Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. of Fort Worth in partnership with
Boeing Co., the Osprey is a hybrid that tilts two giant wingtip rotors
upward to fly like a helicopter and forward to fly like an airplane.
The unique capability allows it to fly as fast and far as a turboprop
plane but to take off and land with the agility of a far slower
helicopter.

About 2,500 people at Bell's plants in Fort Worth and Amarillo work on
the Osprey.

Two V-22 crashes killed 23 Marines six years ago, leading critics to
call for scrapping it. The Marines redesigned and retested it instead.
The Osprey's first combat deployment is expected to be a major event in
the debate between critics who say it is unsafe and the Marines, who
say its foes are relying on outdated information and flawed analysis.

Marine leaders have said previously that sending the V-22 to Iraq was a
possibility, but they also have discussed deploying the Osprey to the
Horn of Africa and elsewhere.

Capt. Stuart Fugler, a spokesman for Marine Corps Air Station in New
River, N.C., where the Osprey is based, said the corps still hasn't
officially announced where the V-22 will go into combat for the first
time, but he suggested Iraq is the answer.

The 100 soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division who rode in the Osprey
during the Jan. 9 training exercise at Fort Stewart are among Army
units headed to the treacherous Al Anbar province of western Iraq,
where they will be attached to Marine units.

Marine commanders "thought that this training was valuable since 3rd
ID, these soldiers, are actually going to roll out into combat here
soon," Capt.
Fugler said. "In case these soldiers actually were going to have to use
or work with the Osprey, they wanted to do that orientation flight for
them."

Two Ospreys from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263, the unit
scheduled to fly the V-22 into combat this year, left New River about
10 a.m. Jan. 9 and flew the 360 miles to Fort Stewart in an hour and 15
minutes, fighting a strong headwind, said Capt. Danny Cohlmeyer, a
pilot with the squadron. The return flight took an hour, he said.

At Fort Stewart, five "sticks" of 20 soldiers at a time * four fewer
troops than can fit on an Osprey * were shown how to board and strap
in. They then got a flight consisting of a vertical takeoff, conversion
to "airplane mode"
to circle the area and a reconversion to helicopter mode to land on a
concrete helicopter pad, Capt. Cohlmeyer said.

Army Maj. Robert Pettit of the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade said in an
e-mail thanking the Marines that "everything worked smooth as silk."

Capt. Cohlmeyer said the Jan. 9 event was the first of several such
exercises planned with ground troops who potentially could ride Ospreys
in combat. Ospreys may go back to Fort Stewart to give more soldiers
rides three or four times by the end of February, and similar flights
for Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C., are planned, he said.